Value is in the Eye of the Employee

Michael Webb, President of Sales Performance Consultants, is
working at the forefront of a new trend to bring to sales and
marketing the tools and results that the quality-improvement
movement gave to manufacturing during the 1980s and 90s. An article
Michael wrote, entitled "Marketing and Selling: The New Six Sigma
Frontier," appears in the current issue of the trade journal
iSixSigma Magazine. In this article, he makes the point that
every task performed in the name of sales and marketing must create
value for the customer. If it doesn't, then the task is a waste and
should be eliminated or changed. Webb defines value as "that which
the customer takes action to obtain."

While most companies are a long way from applying the tools of the
quality movement to human resources management, some actually do
use them. Although statistical tools are most appropriate for
companies with more than 100 employees, quality principles are
rooted in value (what does the customer want?) and so apply in all
cases. Everything you do to promote improved performance should
make a positive contribution or else be dropped or changed. The
question is, how do you know? What is the value to be measured in
performance improvement?

How to Define Value in Performance Improvement

I suggest a definition that is parallel to Webb's: that the value
in employee performance measures is that which the employee takes
action to obtain. In other words, if a given employee works to
achieve recognition, then the recognition has value to that
employee. If a company offers an "Employee of the Month" award that
no employee wants to win, then the award carries no value and
should be dropped or changed.

Let's look at how we could apply some other principles of quality
improvement to our efforts to improve employee performance. To do
this, we'll consider analyzing and trying to improve what a company
does to hire new employees. Keep in mind that many aspects of your
business affect employee performance but this example should make
the principles clear.

Four Key Principles

1. Measure the Essentials. In sales and marketing this would mean
measuring the number of sales calls made or the number of new
leads. For our purposes, this could mean paying attention to the
number of resumes or applications that result from each different
classified ad.

2. Analyze the Real Problem. By examining all the steps taken to
attract and hire new employees, it's possible to identify the
individual steps that might be limiting your success. It could be
that you need to advertise in media that appeal to the right people
or perhaps your interviewers aren't asking the right kinds of
questions.

3. Improve the System to Get Results. Traditional approaches to
improving performance, like sales contests, rarely have long-term
effects. The same goes for randomly changing only part of your
recruiting process. Look at everything you do for recruiting and
hiring as a system and make sure that all the parts work together
in balance. Also make sure that all the parts contribute to the
best possible end result.

4. Control the System to Maintain the Gains. Once you have improved
part of your performance system, it's important to make sure that
the improvements remain in effect. If you have replaced old
classified ads, then now is the time to get delete or re-file the
old ads so they don't mysteriously show up in the paper the next
time you advertise for new hires.

Thinking about your business as a set of processes that interact to
generate high employee performance is a powerful paradigm. It
worked beautifully in the 1980s when American manufacturers began
thinking in process terms and made improvements in quality by leaps
and bounds. The same thing could happen with employee performance
in your business.

Just remember that the value of any improvement you make is in the
eyes of your employees.

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